Cries of Defiance and Derision, and Rhythmic Chants of West Side New York City, 1893-1903

The battle cries of children often become formalized and then belong to folklore as do songs, games, proverbs and riddles. The following notes are drawn from my memories of a group that lived in the west 70's in New York City at the turn of the century. These children were a definitely restricted group, of Anglo-American background and private school influence. They had if any contact with other social and racial groups, and thus retained unfortunate prejudices and cultural limitations. In the quiet streets just east of Riverside Park they played with almost complete freedom from supervision, quickly abandoning the sissy round games of kindergarten and inventing most of their own lusty, imaginative and often dangerous activities. Gangs in age classifications formed for aggression and defence, at first without sexual distinctions, and organized warfare was on a local basis: south side of the block versus north side of the block and 75th Street versus 76th Street. When the children were seven to nine years old the groups had reformed, on sex as well as age and local lines, and pitched became less frequent. These battles always had been more vocal than physical. I, like most of my friends, remained in close intimacy with brothers and male cousins and partook of their culture. And surely the memories of a tomboy are richer than those of a little lady! Forty years later I hope that I am correct in assigning the following calls to the designated decade. In the questionable taste of the majority undoubtedly lay their charm. I omit from the list of defiant calls those that were derived directly from contest games, such as Rover, Red Rover, I dare you come over!; All my sheep gather in a heap, for I spy the woolly, woolly wolf!; A better man than you; touch him if you dare!; and Daddy, I'm on your castle! But here are the other formalized cries that were used in personal and group hostilities as far as I can remember them. I am interested chiefly in the varied origin, in the diffusion and the persistence to the present day of some of these war cries. Several I have heard recently in the East and South, a few in the West and the Southwest. Outstanding in persistence and diffusion is call No. I (see below) as regards meter, cadence and tonal interval. To it such taunts as these were and are chanted: Tommy is a sissy!; Run and tell your mammy!; Bill's in love with Mary!; Johnny got a zero!, which last has become Johnny got a Zero and is no longer a taunt. Though the words were and are varied at will, this call remains an entity, for the important element, the melody, has been remarkably constant. Or so I thought, for this is the way my group remembers it

Aggression · Ancient history · Art · Battle · Folklore · Literature · Sociology · Taste · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society · Social Psychology